RallySafe Speeding Calculator

SPEED LIMITED REAL TIME ADVANTAGE PENALTY SYSTEM

Status Awareness Systems have devised a real time advantage penalty system for speed limited classes competing in rally events. The aim of the system is to provide a scaling penalty that always punishes a breaching car, while at the same time not unduly punishing competitors who break out of their speed limit for a fraction of speed/time.
The algorithm devised uses the data currently collecting from the RallySafe unit in the car, and is provided to the timing and results team in real-time, for efficient results gathering.
Below is a description of how the final penalty is calculated, and a calculator which you can enter values into to try for yourself, and see what penalty will be given.

Enter speed limit in km/h, e.g. 100, 110

Enter the seconds over speed, e.g. 4, 0.1

Enter the maximum speed achieved in the breach, e.g. 115

The calculation is completed by combining how many metres were gained by the speeding infringement, the distance between the speed limit and the maximum speed. This is converted to metres per second and multiplied by the time speeding. For example, a car breaching at 115 km/h in the 110 km/h class for 5 seconds, was 5 km/h faster than the competition, for 5 seconds. 5 km/h in metres per second is 1.38. Thus, this example would have gained 6.94 metres on the competition.

How long, at the speed limit of the class, it would take a car to travel the distance gained is then calculated. This gives us the real time advantage a speeding car has over the competition. Building on the previous example, at 110 km/h you’re travelling 30.56 metres per second, and so it would take the example car 0.22 seconds to travel the 6.94 metres.

To discourage breaches the time gained is multiplied by a penalty factor of 10. After reviewing several options for penalty factors, this number was decided upon as it provides a real incentive for competitors not to break the speed limit. Again by our example, 0.22s X 10 gives a final penalty of 2.27s. * Note, here we’ve rounded off all calculations to 2 decimal places for brevity, the calculations themselves are derived from 10 decimal places. Some events may use a different penalty factor than what is used in this calculator.